Tying Rocks to Clouds: Meetings and Conversations with Wise and Spiritual People

With intrepid good spirits, author Bill Elliott interviews the world's foremost spiritual figures, acquainting us with their exuberant earthly charms as well as their insight and intelligence. Propelled since childhood by the untimely deaths of his parents, Elliott traveled the globe to meet with these luminaries and directly find out their answers to the fundamental questions of existence: What is life's purpose? What is God or Ultimate Reality? Why do people suffer? Does a part of us live on after death? The list of people he met is both diverse and impressive. Not only do they represent every major religious tradition, from Rober Schuller, Rabbi Harold Kushner, and Norman Vincent Peale to His Holiness the Dalai Lama and Jack Kornfield, but also an exciting variety of perspectives, from Ram Dass to Mother Teresa to psychologist B.F. Skinner.

Time and again, the sages included here warmed to Elliott's heartfelt longing for meaning in the world. Their views are framed by Elliott's endearing voice, engaging and perceptive, and by his wonderfully warm sense of humor. Tying Rocks to Clouds is sometimes sad, often funny, and always filled with freshness and joy as it reveals wisdom collected from across the world.

For almost a decade Bill Elliott structured his life around the travels and interviews involved in creating Tying Rocks to Clouds. By night he serves as a mental-health worker in a psychiatric hospital and by day he writes and pursues a master's deggree in counseling and psychology. Elliott enjoys golf and visits to coffee shops with friends to talk about life.